


Different Worlds

by turtleturtleturtle



Category: Las Chicas del Cable | Cable Girls
Genre: F/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 11:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15929333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtleturtleturtle/pseuds/turtleturtleturtle
Summary: After what happened at the airfield, Lidia needs to find the way to go on.  Things rarely end the way we plan them to.Contains huge spoilers for the end of season 3.  Trust me, don't read this until you've finished season 3.





	Different Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> For real, don't read this until you've finished season 3.

Alba Romero planned for endings.  It wasn’t something she always did, it was definitely something she learned to do.  But, she learned it young.  The loss of her parents shocked her when she was young, and she vowed to never be caught without a plan again.  She never again was going to be in a situation she couldn’t see the end of.

There were ends she wanted, of course.  Then there were ends that happened.  These two things didn’t often overlap.

She had planned her life out – she and Francisco would go to Madrid.  They’d do everything they said they would on the train – they’d dance, they’d go out, they’d drink white ladies, they’d be together.

Then, they lost each other, and Alba learned to make other plans.

Then, she had a lot of plans – a quick heist here, a bit of fraud there.  All leading up to a life in Argentina, with Jimena.

Then, Alba made other plans.

For a brief time, she saw the end she imagined with Francisco again – they’d be together, they’d grow old together, they’d see the kids off to their futures and spoil the grandkids together.  They’d have the time.

Then, she started making plans for Lidia Aguilar.  As she felt not so much that Alba Romero was fading away, but that she was growing into Lidia Aguilar, she made plans for herself.  She saw new endings, endings with Francisco, still, since she could never imagine a life without him again.  And, she always held on to some small bit of hope that she’d see him again, ever since she ran down that train platform away from him after her bag.

And she saw an ending with Carlos, an ending she wanted more than anything.  She’d come clean, eventually, probably.  She’d love him, he’d love her, they would figure out the mess that was his family.  They’d grow old together, they’d spoil the kids who’d grow up with everything Lidia didn’t have.  They’d be happy, they’d be safe, they’d be secure.  She knew, no matter what, she and Carlos would come back to each other.

And her girls.  Oh, her girls.  She had dragged her heels long and hard against falling in with them, but she saw endings with them, too.  She’d be there for Angeles as she figured out her own way, how to live her life as a free, independent woman after Mario.  She’d be there for Marga as she moved forward with Pablo.  She’d be there for Carlota and whatever she was doing with Sara and Miguel.

But, things change.  And Lidia learned, oh did Lidia learn, that most of the endings that she planned wouldn’t come to pass.  Some would be better than she imagined, with a few bumps along the way, albeit.  And some would be worse.  Some would be much, much worse.

**-LCDC-**

Lidia was shaking when she stepped out of the ambulance.  She didn’t want to think about what she’d seen in there, what she’d seen on the runway.  How she’d seen Francisco.  She heard how they talked about it in the ambulance, like his body was a thing, not a person.  Like it was something that was, not something that is.  She fought them the whole way, insisting that there was something to be done, insisting that he was there, he was right there, they just needed to help him.  They needed to save him.

“Lidia!” Angeles yelled from the doorway.

“Angeles, what are you doing here?”

“Elisa said that they’d take you to a hospital, to get Eva looked at.  She’s inside with Carlos,” Angeles said.  She finally got a good look at her friend.  She was shaking.  She had blood on her.  There was blood on Eva, too.  “Lidia, what happened?  Are you bleeding?  Is Eva okay?”

“It’s not our blood,” Lidia said, unable to really focus on Angeles.  “Carlos is here?”

Angeles nodded, understanding that Lidia was definitely shaken up, but that also understanding that someone had bled a lot.  “Yes, they’re fixing him up, they think he’s going to be okay.”

Lidia sighed in relief.  She heard commotion behind her.  She saw that they were taking Francisco out of the ambulance.  It stuck in her mind that they didn’t appear to be in a huge rush.

Angeles saw Francisco, too.

“What happened?” Angeles asked again.

“Miss Aguilar,” a medic from the ambulance said, coming up to her.  Again, it stuck in Lidia’s head that he wasn’t with Francisco.  She didn’t want to think about what that meant, though she knew what it meant.  She knew too well.  “We can take the baby in to be looked at now.”

Lidia never wanted to put her daughter down again, ever.  And she wanted to see Carlos.  And she was definitely not going to leave Francisco alone.

“Why aren’t they rushing him in?” she asked.  “They have to do something.”

“Miss Aguilar, he was pronounced dead at the scene…”

She panicked.  She started shaking harder.  She heard Angeles gasp.

“Please, have a doctor look at him,” Lidia said.  “There’s got to be something you can do, please-.”

“Miss Aguilar, calm down, please.”

“Why aren’t you doing something?!” she yelled, lurching toward the small group around Francisco.  Her legs were numb, her heart was pounding, she could swear she could hear the blood pulsing in her head.  They were closing up the ambulance, making sure the stretcher was secure.  She saw one go to put a sheet over his head, but he stopped when she yelled.  “Do something for him, this is a hospital!  Save him!”

“Miss Aguilar,” the medic said.  “Please, calm down, or we’ll have to treat you, too.”

“She’s okay,” Angeles stepped in.  She had a hand on Lidia’s back, steadying her but also keeping her where she was.  “I’ll take her, okay?  I’ll take her to get looked at.  Go with Francisco.”

Lidia looked at Angeles.  Lidia was fine, she knew she was fine, but she felt like her heart was in three different places.  She had dreamed for weeks about getting her daughter back, she had felt her heart shatter when she heard that gunshot in the Company and saw Carlos crumple to the floor.  And then what had happened on the runway…

“Miss Aguilar?

“Yes, can she take her?” Lidia said.  “She’s her aunt.  Please, let me go with Francisco-.”

“Okay,” the medic said.

There were very few people Lidia trusted Eva with, but Angeles was on that list, always.  It killed Lidia to hand her off – she knew that her arms were the safest place for her, and she knew just how dangerous anywhere else could be.

It was like her heart was in three different places – with Eva, with Carlos, with Francisco.  And Francisco was alone.

Lidia kissed her daughter one last time and handed her off to Angeles.

“She’s okay,” Angeles assured her.  “She’s going to be okay.”

Lidia nodded, but felt the tears fall from her eyes.  It took everything she had not to run after Angeles.

She followed the other medic inside, with the cops and Francisco.  They let her in the room, so she watched from as close as she could get as they took Francisco’s pulse and checked for a temperature and listened for a heart beat or lung sounds or anything.  With every test failed, she felt her heart break a little more.

Then, finally, the doctor looked up at her and announced what she’d known for almost half an hour – Francisco Gomez was dead.

Through tears, she thanked the doctor and stood still as a rod as he left.  Then, she silently walked to his side, leaned down and kissed his cheek one last time, and cried.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.  She didn’t know what to do.  She wanted to hold him, but she couldn’t stand the idea of touching him like that.  She wanted to talk to him, but she knew he wouldn’t hear, and she couldn’t stand that, either.  “I’m so sorry, Francisco.  I’m so sorry.”

**-LCDC-**

“How is she?” Lidia asked, rushing into the room she’d been told Eva was in.

“Perfect,” Angeles said, sitting with Eva in her arms.  Eva was playing with Angeles’s hat, like she didn’t have a care in the world.

Angeles went to stand up, but Lidia waved her off.  She took Eva from her and held her close.

There was a bit of silence, then Angeles spoke up.

“And Francisco…”

Lidia looked up at her briefly, tight-lipped, and shook her head.

“Oh, Lidia…”

“He died to get Eva back,” Lidia said, kissing her daughter’s head.  It had been such a hectic day, she felt like she still hadn’t gotten a proper look at her.  She was so much bigger.  Lidia felt like she had missed so much.  She felt different in her arms, she held her differently than she had before.  She’d heard her laugh, like Elisa said.  Lidia had sung to her in the ambulance, to calm her down with all the commotion. 

Lidia knew it was impossible to ever know for sure, but she really felt like Eva recognized her.  She cried quietly as she held her, not wanting to upset her.

“Thank you, Angeles.”

“Of course, Lidia,” Angeles said.  She stood then, though.  “I can go with you to see Carlos, if you want…”

“The doctors are done with him?”

“Oh, I thought someone told you,” Angeles said.  “A doctor came in and said that they are.  Carlos is okay.”

Lidia felt some relief with that.  A lot of relief, actually.  Carlos had lost a lot of blood, he was in bad shape the last time she saw him.  She couldn’t lose anything else that day.

“I’ll go up on my own,” Lidia said, and Angeles nodded.  “I need to tell him about Francisco.”

“Lidia…” Angeles began.  “One of the police can do that.”

Lidia shook her head.  “No, it should be me.  It’s my fault.”

“Lidia, it is not your fault-.”

“I’m going to go up now,” Lidia said.  She reached out for her friend.  “Thank you, Angeles.”

Angeles knew it was not the time to fight Lidia on this.  “If you need anything, call.”

“I will.”

**-LCDC-**

Lidia walked in, and Carlos about jumped out of bed.  He was a sight – he was paler than she’d ever seen him, his arm was all bandaged up, his hair was all disheveled.  But he was more happy than he’d ever been to see Lidia and Eva.

“Eva…” he said quietly, like he never thought he’d see her again.  He wasn’t ever going to admit it to Lidia, though he was sure she knew, that he really for a while there didn’t think he would.

Lidia smiled a bit, helping Carlos take her in his arms.  He smiled wild, having his daughter back in his arms.  There were tears in his eyes.  It reminded Lidia of the first time Carlos ever held her.

“How is she?” he asked, not looking up from her.

“Perfect,” Lidia said.  “The doctors said she’s totally healthy.”

Carlos laughed, happy.  “She’s so much bigger.  Whose hat is this?”

“Angeles’s,” Lidia said.  “She was here.”

“I’m glad she found you,” Elisa said, speaking up from the chair on the other side of Carlos’s bed.  “I’m glad you’re okay, both of you.”

“Thank you for telling her to come,” Lidia said.

Carlos looked between the two of them.  He wasn’t expecting this amount of civility though, frankly, very little of late had gone as he expected.

“You’re okay then?” Carlos asked.

Lidia nodded.  “Yes.”

“And Francisco?”

Lidia sighed, her breath shaking on the exhale.  “Something happened.”

**-LCDC-**

A few days later, they were all back at the Cifuentes family home.  It was eerie, with only the four of them and no Carmen.  It was quieter.  More peaceful, even.  Lidia never felt totally at ease in the house – and frankly, neither did Carlos and definitely not Elisa.  But it felt like home, then.  Usually.

Lidia was fretting over what clothes to wear the next day, to Francisco’s funeral.

This wasn’t part of the plan.  Even after she ended things with Francisco, even after she chose Carlos, this wasn’t an ending she ever imagined.  She was still supposed to grow old with him.  He was supposed to be an uncle to her daughter, she and Carlos were supposed to be aunt and uncle to his kids.  They had their whole lives ahead of them.

“It’s not your fault,” Carlos said.

Lidia looked over at him.  “Carlos…”

“It’s not,” he repeated.  She hadn’t ever said it to him, but he knew she thought it.  She’d had the girls over, and he heard her say it to them.  They talked her out of her, they made sure she knew it wasn’t her fault, they tried to calm her down.  Though, this being Lidia, no one knew if they actually talked her out of it or if she just let them think they did.

Carlos was different, though.  He was the only other person Francisco loved like how he loved Lidia.  Like Lidia and Francisco, Carlos and Francisco were going to be lifers.  They were going to be brothers forever, they were always supposed to be in each other’s lives.

And Carlos knew exactly how Francisco loved Lidia.  He’d spent years listening to him talk about it, for one, and then he saw it for himself.  In a cruel twist of fate, Carlos was the one who came closest to how Lidia felt losing Francisco, her great childhood love.

“It’s my fault Francisco is dead,” Lidia said.  “He lost everything he built in Madrid, everything you helped him build, because of me.  He was going to leave after I got pregnant, remember?  And he stayed, because of me.  He went to that airfield for me, and he got sh-.”

“He loved you,” Carlos said.  “And he loved me, and he loved Eva.  But he made his choices.”

“Carlos-.”

“No,” Carlos said.  “It’s not your fault, Lidia, please, believe me.  He was willing to risk everything for you, to lose everything for you.  I know the feeling.  That doesn’t make it your fault.”

“He should’ve left when he had the chance,” Lidia said, voice thick.  She didn’t want to cry, she’d been trying so hard to keep it together.  She just had to get through the funeral, she kept telling herself.

“Yeah, he probably should have,” Carlos said.  “But that’s who he was.  He was always there to help someone he loved.  I can’t tell you the amount of times he bailed me out.”

Lidia laughed a bit.  She could only imagine.

“He wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“He’s _dead_ , Carlos.”

“I know, love,” Carlos said, wrapping her up in a hug.  She cried on his shoulder, and he found herself crying into her hair.  “I know.”

“He died for me,” Lidia said between cries.  “For us, for our family.  Carlos, he-.”

“I know, I know,” Carlos said.  It hit him, too, the totality of what he did.  Lidia had told him what happened in exacting, painful detail.  And then she told him everything.  He knew a lot about their relationship from Francisco, but Lidia told it from her side, and filled in gaps.

It was long overdue, frankly, though there certainly was never a great time to have the whole Alba-Francisco debrief with Carlos.  He got bits and pieces, but this was the whole story.

He’d told Lidia a lot about his relationship with Francisco, too.  How they met, how Francisco was unlike anyone Carlos had met before but he still fit in well with the family.  They’d spent a lot time the past couple of days talking about Francisco.  It was hard, it was really hard.  It was made a little easier by the fact that they had each other, though.

**-LCDC-**

There were a million things Lidia wanted to say at the funeral.  She wanted to say that she loved him forever.  He was always going to be her first great love.  He was always going to be the boy who taught her to jump trains, the boy who took her in when her parents died, the boy who let her go on and on about her big city dreams when he was trying to sleep.

She wanted to say that when he died, part of her died.  Part of the girl on the farm in the countryside, part of the girl on the train, part of the girl robbing the Telephone Company, part of the girl who dreamed of Uncle Francisco chasing Eva around like he used to play around with the younger orphan kids in the village they grew up in.

She wanted to say that she’d never really be able to describe what Francisco meant to her, but she could feel it, and she always would.  She could see it, like a movie, during those moments on the airstrip that felt like they went on for hours.  As she yelled for help, as she begged for someone to save him as he sat in front of her, bleeding, she saw the boy on the train who had a thing for that spot on her neck.  She saw the man who chased her down in the train station, refusing to let her go again.  She saw the man who let her go when she chose Carlos, who gave her away at her wedding. 

She didn’t say any of that.  She didn’t say anything at the funeral.  She was silent the whole time.  Carlos was, too, as was Elisa.  None of them were really sure what more to say to each other, and no one knew what to say to them – there wasn’t exactly a script for condolences about one’s recently deceased ex-love, ex-brother-in-law, and ex-husband.

Most people ended up going to the White Lady after.  Lidia and Carlos went for a while, and a strange fact occurred to Lidia – she never actually had a White Lady ever.  And, she was sure she never would.

**Author's Note:**

> THAT MONTAGE KILLED ME AND I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE FRANCISCO ALL THAT MUCH. I have a lot of feelings about this season (mostly v good) and I yelled at my tv when they started playing that song and doing the montage. I do believe my exact words were "Oh shit that's a death montage, he's dead." So yeah, I think Francisco is definitely dead. Which is an interesting narrative choice that I think I like. I think it was time for Francisco to be off the show and this is definitely a way to get rid of him and move the story forward. Though, tbh, they blew up an entire building, they're not really lacking storyline from there on out.
> 
> Anyway. The title is from the song "Different Worlds" which is the song that plays in that last scene and a few other Lidia/Francisco scenes. The music on this show (especially the score, the score of the scene in the season 2 finale when Francisco leaves Lidia killllls me and they used it again in season 3 and I died) is great and I couldn't think of a title so I went with that.
> 
> Anyway that's my opinion on those things. Please let me know what you guys think of this! I really wanted to write something because obviously this is going to have a huge effect on Lidia and it's fun to explore what that is.


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